SLMC Leader and Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem said yesterday that extremist groups like the Bodu Bala Sena, Ravana Balaya and Sinhala Ravaya had spun out of control and they should be kept on a tight leash by the government.

Addressing a rally in Matara, Minister Hakeem said that the law should apply to all and sundry and containing those extremist groups would help stop attacks on places of religious worship.

Minister Hakeem said that the SLMC was a democratic party and that the Muslim community expected it to stand up for their rights.

The party was attempting to reform the government from within and it had a responsibility towards their community. President Mahinda Rajapaksa should put a stop to those extremist elements who were backed by some government allies, he said.

The Justice Minister said that the SLMC was not attempting to destabilise the government and it was not a puppet of the international community or NGOs, contrary to claims made in some quarters. He said that he had not conspired against the President or the government and that his conscience was clear on that matter.

The government should protect all sections of the populace and that would make the government stronger than ever, Minister Hakeem said.

He said that though the SLMC had been left out of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on the ethnic issue, it had chosen to remain in the government while the main opposition parties like the UNP, TNA and JVP were boycotting it.

Hardline Buddhist monks are targeting Muslims and Christians in Sri Lanka, where the civil war’s end has spurred a new wave of sectarianism bent on preserving Sinhalese culture. Since the conflict ended nearly five years ago, groups like Bodu Bala Sena have emerged as Sri Lanka’s self-appointed watchdogs of Buddhism. At 19:30 GMT, we discuss the violent side of Sri Lankan Buddhism.

On this episode, The Stream speaks to:

Dilanthe Withanage @dilanthe
Executive member and coordinator of the Bodu Bala Sana
bodubalasena.org

Mahinda Deegalle @mdeegalle
Reader in Study of Religions, Philosophies and Ethics at Bath Spa University
applications.bathspa.ac.uk

Palitha Kohona
Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations
slmission.com

Nationalist Buddhist groups say their mission is to “save the Sinhala race,” which makes up 74 per cent of the population. In recent years, nationalist groups such as Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and Ravana Balaya have campaigned against religious minorities in Sri Lanka. They say they are non-violent, yet minorities accuse them of attacking mosques and Christian churches and prayer centres, as seen in the video below:

Buddhists mobs attacked nearly 20 mosques last year, according to Sri Lanka’s capital police. And more than three Christian places of worship were reportedly targeted this year. BBS denies involvement in the sectarian violence.

However, the group has warned of the spread of Islam and actively leads a campaign against the Muslim system of certifying halal foods and other goods. According to the BBS, they are not against halal products, but believe halal food should not be imposed on Sri Lankans of other religions. […]

The photo of the two monks above looks innocent enough. One of the men presents the other with a birthday present. It’s difficult to make out, but it looks to be some sort of gold figurine on a red velvet base. In fact, the photo would be totally uninteresting if it weren’t for the fact that these men are two of the world’s most important leaders of a dangerously radical brand of Buddhism.

The man on the right is Burma’s Ashin Wirathu. Known as the “bin Laden of Buddhism,” Wirathu leads the country’s 969 movement, which sees the country’s Muslim minority as an existential threat to its majority Buddhist population. The man on the left is Sri Lanka’s Galagoda Atte Gnanasara, the face of hardline Buddhism in the island nation.

Together, these two robed radicals anchor a powerful, violent, and new political force in Asia.

Over the course of the past three years, Burma’s former military government has embarked on a series of significant democratic reforms, but the departure from military dictatorship has also coincided with a flowering of a radical Buddhist nationalism that has crystallized in communal violence against the country’s Muslim minority. Wirathu has emerged as the public face of that movement, and the monk’s anti-Muslim rhetoric has helped incite attacks on Burma’s Muslim civilians — particularly its ethnic Rohingya — over the past 18 months. Last year, TIME magazine featured Wirathu on its cover under the headline “The Face of Buddhist Terror.”

But Wirathu is not alone in setting out a dangerous new vision for a religion grounded in the principle of non-violence. Gnanasara, who serves as a spiritual leader of sorts, is using his position to stoke the same type of religious bigotry in his home country of Sri Lanka.

Gnanasara is the co-founder of Sri Lanka’s Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Power Force. The group, which was formed in 2012, agitates against what it sees as the threat Islam poses to Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese-Buddhist identity. As in Burma, Muslims in Sri Lanka are a small, largely peaceful minority. But that hasn’t stopped Gnanasara’s group from stoking fears of extremism.

According to a January report by the Associated Press, Buddhists in Sri Lanka have “attacked dozens of mosques and called for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses and bans on headscarves and halal foods. At boisterous rallies, monks claim Muslims are out to recruit children, marry Buddhist women and divide the country.”

In August 2013, a group of Buddhist monks attacked a mosque in the capital of Colombo. The mob struck the mosque while congregants were engaged in prayer, breaking windows and damaging the building. Both Muslims and Sinhalese Buddhists were injured in the clashes that followed the incident.

The vilification of Muslims is not simply base intolerance; it also serves a convenient purpose for Sri Lanka’s largely Sinhalese powerbrokers. Five years after the end of the civil war with the Tamil Tigers, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s political machine needs a new scapegoat for the everyday frustrations of their constituents, many of whom have grown unhappy with the government’s heavy-handed security policies and its failure to deliver robust growth. The government seems to be “tacitly encouraging, and in some cases directly supporting, the anti-Muslim campaigns led by militant and often violent Buddhist organizations,” according to a November 2013 Crisis Group report.

If Gnanasara is indeed in Burma — the photos have emerged only on minor Sri Lankan news outlets — his visit comes at a sadly appropriate time. The Burmese government is considering a law governing inter-faith marriage law that would “protect” Buddhist women by requiring their non-Buddhist suitors to convert and gain permission from the women’s parents if they wish to wed. Wirathu has campaigned aggressively in support of the law.

Despite pushback from local activists, public officials in both Sri Lanka and Burma have been loath to challenge Wirathu and Gnanasara. It seems these two men, and the radical brand of Buddhism they represent, are here to stay.

An update of “Muslims’ Concerns” presented by the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, August 2013

Key Information
1. Over the 12 month period between January and December 2013 there were at least 241 anti-Muslim attacks andat least 69 anti-Christian attacks in Sri Lanka. 51 of the anti-Muslim incidents were violent, involving either physical violence against individuals or destruction of property. 15attacks against Christians were violent. There were no significant attacks against Buddhists and Hindus. […]